CFD Supported Performance Estimation of an Internally Finned Tube Heat Exchanger Under Mixed Convection Flow

Results of a numerical analysis using Finite Volume Method of an internally finned axi-symmetric tube heat exchanger have been presented in this paper. The parametric study has been done using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) program named FLUENT to estimate the performance of the heat exchanger with different fin shapes, sizes and numbers. The results obtained from the study for a steady and laminar flow of fluid under mixed flow convection heat transfer condition shows that there exists an optimum number for fins to keep the pipe wall temperature at a minimum. The wall temperature optimises at a definite fin height beyond which it is insensitive to any height variation. Moreover, amongst the three different shapes considered for fin, results show that wall temperature is least for triangular shaped fins, compared to rectangular and T-shaped fins. In addition to study of thermal characteristics, the pressure drop caused by presence of fins has also been studied.